Dr. Marvin Wachman (1917-2007) was a great advocate for educating young people. In a distinguished academic career, he served as president of both Temple University and Lincoln University and led the Foreign Policy Research Institute as president from 1983 to 1989. Throughout his life, he remained a passionate believer that “you never stop learning.”
Established in 1990, the Wachman Center is dedicated to improving international and civic literacy for high school teachers and high school students.

December 2016 marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Soviet Russia. Both dates give reason to reexamine the history of Eurasia, a vast region with many ethnic groups and multiple religions, at times united under authoritarian governments, at other times divided between dozens of countries.

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Another day, another hacking. At least, that’s what it seemed at first.

In August, two election databases in Arizona and Illinois were hacked. Arizona responded by shutting down voter registration for nearly a week, and in Illinois, the breach resulted in the compromise of more than 200,000 voter records. Hackers breaching databases has become so commonplace that the loss of personal information barely raises an eyebrow for most Americans. This hack, like so many others, received little attention at first.

Fast-forward two months and these breaches have taken on new significance. Russia is now credited not only with these voter database hacks, but also with attacks on numerous Democratic National Committee members and key current and former U.S. government officials. Election-related hacking coincides ominously with presidential candidate Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that “the election is rigged” and his threats to not accept the election’s results if he were to lose. Americans, he suggests, can’t trust the outcome because of its manipulation and inauthenticity.

While these breaches have helped sow the seeds of distrust, in reality, hacking the election remains technically challenging, even for state actors like Russia. But in this election, perceptions may overtake reality, and even if Russia fails in its attempts to hack the election, the doubt it raises can still bring them a strategic victory over their American rivals.

The Foreign Policy Research Institute, founded in 1955, is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests. In the tradition of our founder, Ambassador Robert Strausz-Hupé, Philadelphia-based FPRI embraces history and geography to illuminate foreign policy challenges facing the United States. More about FPRI »